Phoenix Suns president Lon Babby's life work prepared him

The boy who watched NBA games in the Madison Square Garden rafters took the helm of Phoenix Suns basketball operations last month, drawing on 59 years of life to get there.

Babby subscribes to the 10,000-hour rule. In "Outliers," author Malcolm Gladwell cited studies that say it took the stars of any field - Bill Gates, the Beatles, pro athletes - 10,000 hours of work to assimilate what they need to know for their crafts.

Even with 33 years in sports law, in baseball and football front offices and as a basketball agent, Babby never saw the role of Suns president coming until it spun out of other talks with Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver.

Now, it all makes sense. He acquired a passion for sports from his father taking him to games. He became a leader and orator at summer camps. He joined a law firm founded by the Washington Redskins president, who later owned the Baltimore Orioles. Babby was on the defense team for John Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan. When the Orioles were sold, a team executive - former NFL great Calvin Hill - asked whether Babby would represent his son, Grant Hill, and a 16-year career in athlete representation began.

"I put my 10,000 hours in a lot of different ways," Babby said. "It seems like my whole career was a preparation for the job I have now."

Dad's sports influence

Babby grew up in the Long Island village of Valley Stream. His mother, a New York University graduate, was an interior decorator and his father, who dropped out of high school to support his family once his father died, was a Manhattan men's clothing store manager and "a quintessential New Yorker." Babby took the train to Manhattan to meet his father for a sandwich and a Knicks game.

"He was a huge sports fan," Babby said. "We spent a lot of time going to games and bonding.

"Sometimes I realize where I work and I'll take a peek out at the court and say, 'How did this happen and what would he say if he was alive?'

"He would've gotten a big kick out of this."

Babby ultimately focused on a law career.

"Growing up, I remember having a tremendous sense of justice," he said. "I was the kind of kid who, if I was standing in line and someone older, usually an adult, cut in line, that really offended me."

Teen summer camps in the Adirondacks proved fruitful, turning him into a leader and introducing him to his wife, Ellen.

The law

Motivated by Ivy League snubs, Babby became a straight-A government student at Lehigh.

"Lon was a very dedicated, organized system guy," said college roommate Tom Hayes, who lives in Scottsdale. "He was not about to let somebody beat him by working harder than him. I never had a clue he'd end up in sports but he was a fanatical, knowledgeable fan."

Babby went to Yale Law School and stayed in Connecticut an extra year to clerk for a federal district judge while Ellen, now a vice president for American Council on Education, finished her French literature doctorate at Yale. Their kids also are accomplished. Ken, at 30, is the Washington Post's chief revenue officer and general manager of digital media. Heather works in marketing for Saks Fifth Avenue.

In 1977, Babby became a lawyer at Williams and Connolly, a premier litigation company. Babby was eager to do First Amendment and criminal defense work there, but also was attracted by founder Edward Bennett Williams' trial lawyer work and his position as Redskins president. Babby stayed with the firm until accepting the Suns job.

Sports couldn't match the spotlight his law team drew in 1981 in representing Hinckley after he shot Reagan. Babby, then closest in age at 30, connected with Hinckley best.

"Our defense was the correct one, that he should not be held criminally responsible for shooting Reagan because he was mentally ill," Babby said.

"It was the first time I got calls in the middle of the night. It was an unpopular cause ... but also a great reassurance about the quality of our justice system. Where else could a guy who shot the president get a fair trial and win?"

The sports biz

After Williams bought the Orioles in 1979, Babby served as the team's club counsel and then general counsel until the team was sold in 1994. He helped run the team and negotiated contracts for General Manager Roland Hemond, now a special assistant to Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall.

"He could analyze a situation quickly, prepare a plan and follow it extremely well," Hemond said. "He understands athletes. He's a fine leader for any organization. He gains respect and maintains it."

Unsure of his next career turn as the Orioles were sold in 1994, Babby was asked by Hill to talk to his son, Grant, about representing him because the Duke star had not clicked with prospective agents.

"I saw what a lot of his clients have seen," Grant Hill said. "He's smart, thorough. He's a dot-the-I's, cross-the-T's guy. In 30 minutes, I wanted him to work for me. He was smarter than the others. He was competitive and a good person. That's what I wanted to be aligned with."

He added Cherokee Parks and Jerome Williams but his practice took off by landing Tim Duncan in 1997.

"Management experience was an advantage," Babby said. "I'd heard all the arguments so I knew which ones worked and which ones didn't."

A negotiating career in every major sport - at both sides of the table - brought him to Phoenix, where he was hired for his savvy with contracts and ability to optimize moves in a revamped collective bargaining agreement next year.

"People don't rise from nothing," Gladwell wrote in "Outliers." "It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't."